Science Questions

Do fish always swim anticlockwise in a round bowl? I’ve watched my sister’s fish and they always go anticlockwise. When they’re in an oblong tank they go in every single direction. Roy, Morden

Helen: I’ve never heard about fish going in one single direction in a fish tank so I think we’re going to need some more data to back that up.  Fish can navigate, they do know where they’re going.  Why they’d swim in only one direction, I have no idea.  I can imagine they’d keep going round and round one but they can’t in the square one because there’s corners.

Chris: It’s also a myth that they’d lose their memory in 5 seconds, isn’t it?

Helen: Absolutely, fish are much cleverer.  They have much longer memories than 7 seconds.  Anyone else got any fish in their tanks, want to let us know what they’re doing?

We also received an answer from Izzy during the Naked Scientists Wet and Wild Show.

January 2008